Why I Write Poetry

Poem on an assigned topic, "Why I Write Poetry"

for "Creating Poetry" Master of Liberal Studies class at SMU, Fall 2014

Words are never enough. But oftentimes

Words are the best we have to work with. And

When it comes to the kinds of things for which

Words are not enough,

Words work better as poetry.

Words are not enough for science,

Which resorts to numbers as its native tongue.

Words are not enough for art:

We all know how many a solitary picture is

Worth.

Words may be good enough for philosophy, perhaps. (If there is such a thing.)

Words are not enough for the things that matter most.

Words are not enough for love.

Words are not enough for music. (And sometimes, as the Eagles

Wrote in “The Best of My Love,” sometimes “the

Words [get] in the

Way.”)

Words are not enough for food, and sex, and sunsets. I pile on the

Words to describe giggles squealing from a scrunched-up face under manic siege by a 
          relentless puppy dog tongue one almost forgotten and unforgettable rough-and-tumble
          afternoon in the meadow by the farm house of my childhood summers.

Words are never enough. But the more

Words sound like poetry… Ahhh!

–Tim McLemore

September 2014